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It's a really great question...I think, after I was diagnosed (12 yrs ago), I read just about everything I could about health and healing including Bernie Siegel, Joan Borysenko, Ram Dass, etc. But, over the years, I have found myself drawn to the classics. My rationale being, what if I die and haven't read Proust or Thomas Hardy or all of Shakespeare (especially, of course, the tragedies) or favorite poets like Shelley or Bly or Ann Sexton. But, I'm not very consistent with this because, I mean, really, can one really all of Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, or the Brontes without asking for plum pudding and wondering what a stroll about the moors would really be like. So, then I read whatever...

As for music: I still love Bach. And the Faure Requiem always renders me to tears. But I do get off on Bare Naked Ladies (the group). Actually, Leonard Cohen will always be a favorite although I sneak a listen to Celine Dion (I just tell anyone about it).

After I was diagnosed everything fell silent. I had a hard time listening to music because all of it seemed like one big symbol for my life before hiv.

I've slowly gotten over that. I started going to the gym alot. I dug up all this old hardcore and punk music I use to listen to alot and put it on my ipod. I also started listening to alot of gangsta' rap. Anything powerful and angry. I'd work out and it was alot of anger but also alot of FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!! I guess I was like Rocky or something. Fugazi's 'KYEO' became like an anthem for me. It ends with , 'We will not be beaten down'. What more do you need?

My workouts aren't quite so angry anymore...thankfully.

I started listening to alot of soul music. I find it very uplifting. Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Lyn Collins, Al Green, Otis Redding and of course....James Brown. It makes me feel better.

I stopped listening to alot of jazz. I love jazz but alot of it started to sound pretty damn pointless.

And I feel like I understand the pain and loneliness in country music like never before. Last night I put on an old Loretta Lynn record. Damn that stuff is good. I was right there with her.

I do not think my listening or reading habits changed but the messages I got from them did change. Life is a little more carefree and a little less stressful these days. A lot of stuff that mattered before does not matter so much anymore and a lot of things I neglected (like my partner, my family, etc) have become more in focus for me.

My listening or reading habits have not changed at all, with the exception of these forums.

Lisa

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"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves.."Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?"

Brian, I think you're right about jazz. Sometimes I still love it, but it seems to be "background." I am doing my damnedest to stay away from sad songs (since my diagnosis occurred at the same time I got dumped, it's no surprise that Randy van Warmer's "You Left Me (Just When I Needed You Most)" plays over and over in my head), and that's tough. And Alan, that is hilarious: "hard" and "tarred"!! LOL!!

I think part of the impetus for asking the question comes from what I suddenly feel I "need to get done." One of the first things I read was an upbeat HIV site (can't remember the name), full of testimonies that all essentially said "Do now what you've been putting off, live that life you've always wanted" etc. While that is often good to hear, I stood back and thought: Gee, you know, I don't want to climb Mount Everest, I don't want to write that great Canadian novel, I don't want to travel the world. I like where I am and there isn't too much I want to change, though there are things that are now more sharply in focus.

I still love the Ramones,and Ive recently finished reading two books about them.They have all died except the drummer and I cant help but feel "the curse of the ramones" has hit some of their fans,me being a big one.Their music is filled with anger and sometimes it lets me vent.I never really cared for lyrics,the music was more important to me. Roxy music,trex,bowie any punk does it for me.always did and always will.But I still like some mellow stuff like Bread.Love,and some early Beatles.Oh,I read a lot of medical journals and health magazines and stuff,much more than before.

I am wondering, then: who out there reads more lit on HIV and related info now? Since my diagnosis, I have read only as much as I feel I need to. Reading more, beyond headlines, I feel gives me "information overload." It is not that I want to be ignorant; I'm just not sure that knowing more than what I might find casually and/or ask my doctor is helpful for me. Others???

Since ADD is my friend and is alive and well. For me to sit for any length of time is impossible. My reasearch comes from magazines and never more than that. If I am not in MOAB wrecking my jeep, I am out hicking or climbing. My CD collection would revolve around Bach, Motzart, Verdi. We have the Aspen Music Festival every summer so me and Will sit out on the lawn outside the tent (free) with our non-alcholic wine and cheese and scritch out dog. John Williams was out 2 summers ago and I almost creamed my pants with that one.. As A kid I remember Jack Benny playing there and he was actually a hell of a violinist. Yo Yo last year... Its great when its all free!

I havent changed a dam thing differently. Im listening to and reading just about the same kind of material for entertainment as I always have.

Im just a lot older than I was then. and I intend to continue getting older. I'm as nasty and obnoxious as I have always been. Also Im as loving and as caring as I can be. (Going to Hell for that lie)

The only thing I can think of that is different is I'm trying to learn how to type. As if you all couldn't tell.

Quote from Dennis:  read and watch a lot more porn than I used to! I forgot about that. last week I was throwing out some old CDs that I was tired of and screwed up my paper shredder. Dumb! I think I could open up an adult video shop with the crap I have.

Well, listening to Maria Callas sing "Vissi D'Arte, Vissi D'Amore" -- I lived for Art, I lived for Love -- makes me feel kinda weepy in a sentimental sorta way; it helps that I listen to it after several martinis or glasses of red wine. Basically, Tosca is addressing God and saying, I'm a good person, why do bad things happen to me? But then I feel like a self-pitying drama queen, who fakes his emotions, so then I listen to the disco remix of "Sweet Caroline" and jump up and down.

lydgate

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Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

I bought Elton John's "Tumbleweed Connection" on vinyl when it was new release. On that album there is a song called "Talking Old Soldiers," I believe it is the finest thing Elton John/ Bernie Taupin ever wrote. I listen to that song every time I hear of a friends death after Elton John sings, "Do you know what it is like to have a graveyard as a friend, cause that's where they are gone, all of them. Don't seem likely I'll have friends like that again. You've got your memories." Then I put the god damn thing away until the next funeral. Have the best dayMichael

Of all things, Creed's "Arms Wide Open" sounds like it could have been written for a new diagnosis, although I think it is a song about a somewhat regretful father-to-be's reflections on the impending birth of his child.

I've cut & selected lyrics, thusly:

Well I just heard the news today It seems my life is going to change

Well I don't know if I'm ready To be the man I have to be

If I had just one wish Only one demandI hope he's not like me I hope he understands That he can take this life And hold it by the hand And he can greet the world With arms wide open...

The way music touched me definitely changed after my diagnosis. I still love "When I Get Where I'm Going" by Brad Paisley. Any song that touched on death or a sickness definitely strummed the ol' heart strings. I sympathize a lot more now. Maybe finding out my HIV status melted a few places in this homo's heart that had frozen over during the past few years.

Also, religious music seems to touch me in a way that seems deeper than it ever did before. The chorus to "Jesus, Take the Wheel" hit an especially strong emotional string.

"Jesus, take the wheel.Take it from my hands.Cuz I can't do this on my own.I'm letting go,So give me one more chance.Save me from this road I'm on.Jesus, take the wheel."

"When I get where I'm going,There'll be only happy tears.I will shed the sins and struggles I have carried all these years.I'll leave my heart wide open;I will love and have no fear.Yeah, when I get where I'm going,Don't cry for me down here."

*quiet strum of a harp*

I still love to read the same material, but an emotional scene will touch me deeper just like with music.

« Last Edit: June 16, 2006, 05:33:42 PM by MoltenStorm »

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"Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful nor conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes." - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, adaptation in A Walk To Remember

I have always listened to a variety of music...especially punk/alternative/queercore/metal.... a lot of which is inherently 'angry', 'furious', 'harsh', you get the pic...but I have gotten into a lot more country than I used to....but I really stick to the main things that get me going. Oh, I definitely have a new found respect for The Cure and The Smiths now, hehee.

As far as reading, I read a lot more on HIV/AIDS, fiction and non-fiction. I also watch a ton of movies that have HIV/AIDS related themes.

Musically, I'm still (re)living the 80's. Duran Duran. Pet Shop Boys. Spandau Ballet. Culture Club. OMD. Many of them still seem to be uplifting if I just grove to the beat and pay little attention to lyrics.

One thing that has come sharply into focus is the connotation of the word "positive". Sayings like "See the positive side" have a strange new duality to them. I'm still trying to reconcile my feelings and thoughts and I am now beginning not to mind the word so much in common speech. I call it the P-word and, for once, the P-word isn't pornographic.

I've never been a fan of literature though I press myself to read when I can. Dictionary.com's word of the day helps me to pass for academic, though I've read maybe 10 books, cover-to-over, in my entire life. I'm too much in love with visual stimulation than anything else, but these forums seem an extension of that when the emotion leaves the page/screen. I should try to read more, and develop that skill. As it stands, my inner monologue tends to dominate and lead me off on magical tangents which I generally don't mind at all, aside from returning to read and re-read the same sentence over and over again